Date Approved

4-15-2026

Embargo Period

4-15-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S. Mechanical Engineering

Department

Mechanical Engineering

College

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering

Advisor

Francis Haas, Ph.D.

Committee Member 1

Joseph Stanzione III, Ph.D.

Committee Member 2

Matthew Leoncini

Keywords

Additive Manufacturing;Coating;Cold Spray;Helium;Hydrogen;Manufacturing

Disciplines

Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Cold spray (CS) has gained recent interest as an additive manufacturing process. This process uses high pressure propellant gas to accelerate solid-state powder particles through a specialized nozzle, beyond which the powder deposits onto a substrate as a dense coating and without either material undergoing a phase change. Both nitrogen (N2) and helium (He) are commonly used as CS propellants, with He generally yielding superior results at otherwise similar processing conditions. However, performance advantages of He come with a significant drawback: He is a limited resource that may be sensitive to geopolitical conflicts and, in recent history, has been subject to supply disruptions. Such issues highlight the need for an alternative high-performance CS propellant. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that widely available and comparatively inexpensive hydrogen (H2) is also a viable propellant by describing the development of an experimental platform for assessing the use of undiluted H2 for CS processing contained within a controlled atmospheric environment. Present results show successful H2-propelled spot deposition of both aluminum (Al) powder onto a copper substrate and Al powder onto an Al substrate at nozzle inlet pressures ranging from 300 to 500 psig and without the application of propellant preheating or use of a complex nozzle design. Both of these process enhancements, among others, are logical next steps for future work now that the feasibility of “room temperature” H2-propelled cold spray has been demonstrated.

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